phaskell59
Technical User
There was, about 5 years ago (pre version 5) a well circulated procedure to recvover from a lost/forgotten root password. If anyone still has a copy of this please send. Thanks in advance, Paul
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Lost Root password Recovery
- Thread starter phaskell59
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In the old days, before shadow passwords and C3 security - you could boot from<br>
your emergency boot floppy, mount the hard disk, and either restore /etc/passwd<br>
from a backup, or simply edit it and remove the root password. When booting<br>
from the floppy you have full su rights so you can do anything. Note that this<br>
will totally corrupt your password files if you try to do this on version 5. Read<br>
the tech article at sco.com for more info. <br>
If you are a "C" programmer, you can also write a program that grants super<br>
user privelege to the user running it (the +s bit for chmod), boot from the floppy,<br>
mount the hard disk, then change the owner to root for that program. Reboot<br>
from the hard disk, run your "C" program to start a child shell that now has<br>
su privelege, and run passwd root. If you don't know what I'm talking about,<br>
don't try it because it is a REAL Trojan horse.<br>
PS: I hope you are not trying to hack into someone's system because this<br>
would make me feel REAL bad!<br>
Good luck.<br>
your emergency boot floppy, mount the hard disk, and either restore /etc/passwd<br>
from a backup, or simply edit it and remove the root password. When booting<br>
from the floppy you have full su rights so you can do anything. Note that this<br>
will totally corrupt your password files if you try to do this on version 5. Read<br>
the tech article at sco.com for more info. <br>
If you are a "C" programmer, you can also write a program that grants super<br>
user privelege to the user running it (the +s bit for chmod), boot from the floppy,<br>
mount the hard disk, then change the owner to root for that program. Reboot<br>
from the hard disk, run your "C" program to start a child shell that now has<br>
su privelege, and run passwd root. If you don't know what I'm talking about,<br>
don't try it because it is a REAL Trojan horse.<br>
PS: I hope you are not trying to hack into someone's system because this<br>
would make me feel REAL bad!<br>
Good luck.<br>
I happen to be on JP Radley's SCO site and found another solution I have never tried, but it sounds reasonable. His site is: <A HREF=" TARGET="_new">There is some other good stuff there that may help. I cut this from his page:<br>
<br>
This procedure will work for any variant of SCO Xenix or Unix. As above, boot from your<br>
emergency boot diskettes and mount /dev/hd0root /mnt to gain access to your hard drive's<br>
root filesystem. Now, run /mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/mnt/bin/passwd root" (check the<br>
chroot man page for more info on how it works). As before, shut down and reboot. It has been<br>
reported that on 3.2v4.2 (and possibly others), this must be done in two steps: /mnt/bin/chroot<br>
/mnt "/bin/su root", followed by passwd. If it doesn't work with the quotes, try it without. <br>
<br>
This procedure will work for any variant of SCO Xenix or Unix. As above, boot from your<br>
emergency boot diskettes and mount /dev/hd0root /mnt to gain access to your hard drive's<br>
root filesystem. Now, run /mnt/bin/chroot /mnt "/mnt/bin/passwd root" (check the<br>
chroot man page for more info on how it works). As before, shut down and reboot. It has been<br>
reported that on 3.2v4.2 (and possibly others), this must be done in two steps: /mnt/bin/chroot<br>
/mnt "/bin/su root", followed by passwd. If it doesn't work with the quotes, try it without. <br>
Got the emergency boot diskettes? OS is 3.2v5.0.4? Just need to get clarification.
Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com
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Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.
u must visit search for "lost password"
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